"Parnell." By Elsie T. Schauffier. At the New THIS distinguished
play now shares with Encore Les Dames and All-In Marriage the blessing of the Lord Chamberlain. And about time, too ; it would have been a sad business for the English theatre if this, the first considerable contribution to a season which has been as spectacularly fatal as Becher's Brook, had got benighted among hereditary susceptibilities. The Gate Theatre production has been reviewed at length in these columns ; it only remains for me to salute Parnell's translation to respectability. Miss Margaret Rawlings is extraordinarily good as Katie O'Shea. There are, it is true, flashes of self-consciousness, and when Parnell dies there is a small but important moment when Miss Rawlings' personality is not strong enough to submerge her technique and thus carry a rendering which is a little too sophisticated, a little too nouht. But, though her intelligence too often intrudes itself, it is a passionate intelligence ; and our admiration, if it is sometimes more detached and academic than it ideally might be, is never less than fervent. Here is a brilliant and a generous performance. Mr. Wyndham Goldie's Parnell is a little dimmed by it, but he fails only in one respect. Here is no leader. He is undynamic in committee, he seems star- crossed from the start, and he qualifies his success in the role by failing to persuade us that he is essential to his cause. Apart from this, however, he is admirable. So is Miss Marda Vanne, scintillating discreetly as a percipient beldame, and so is Mr.-Glen .Byam Shaw as a ramrod of a cuckold ; while Mr. Arthur Young's Gladstone suffers only from the glass case in which author and audience conspire to enshrine him. But in a way the best of all is Mr. Harry Hutchinson, in the small part of a political supporter of Parnell's. Perhaps he over- acts, but since he is acting an Irishman who are we to judge ? At any rate he acts (loyally, not selfishly) for all he is worth ; he makes his small part tell and endears himself to us. There are many players of his calibre, acquaintances rather than idols of the public, but working as hard as any star and more effectively than some. It is pleasant to have a chance of pay-
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